Question: In your AIDS items over the years you seem to have taken a far too casual stance on transmission dangers. Are you doing your readers a disservice? I refer to your statements about the AIDS patient in the family setting. Recent facts seem to dispute your statements. Please comment and maybe change your views.
- G.B.J.
Answer: I continue to urge my readers to stay calm about AIDS, noting that the risk of transmission lies almost entirely in promiscuous or unprotected sex and intravenous drug use.
Otherwise, more than a decade of experience does justify a more relaxed attitude in normal non-sexual family settings.
The two recent and somewhat surprising reports of intrafamily transmission from non-sexual exposure to which you refer did not escape my notice. As you might imagine, the circumstances in the two incidents were most unusual.
In one of the cases, an infected child had frequent nose and gum bleeding and shared a common bed and toothbrushes with siblings. In the second incident, an infected child had open sores.
The two isolated exceptions do not alter my view that families can safely share quarters and loving relationships with AIDS patients. The lesson to be learned from the two recently reported exceptions is that such unusual circumstances do demand extra caution.
Question: Can fibrositis cause an IgM antibody problem and high sedimentation rate? My doctor tells me I have both. He is calling my problem "benign mono-clonal gammopathy." He did not answer my fibrositis question.
Answer: I want to stay out of the deep woods here. Briefly, fibrositis causes neither an elevated sed rate nor a high IgM antibody level. Monoclonal gammopathy, on the other hand, causes both.
In monoclonal gammopathy, certain antibody-producing cells get turned on. Too many IgM antibodies are made, "IgM" standing for "immunoglobulin M."
The point is that there is a list of illnesses in which this antibody situation arises. A certain bone cancer and amyloidosis, where internal organs are damaged, are examples. And there are cases where monoclonal gammopathy is not cancer-related and is called benign. Fortunately, you have that kind.
You can expect your doctor to monitor your condition closely.
Read the fibrositis booklet I am sending for answers to your questions about that condition. Others can order the booklet by writing: Dr. Donohue - No. 43, Box 5539, Riverton, NJ 08077-5539. Enclose $3 and a self-addressed, stamped (52 cents) No. 10 envelope.
Question: I am 41. My last mammogram showed microcalcifications in both breasts. Should this worry me? What causes this?
- D.M.S.
Answer: Some calcifications indicate cancer. Others do not. The pattern of formation tells the difference.
Many women have such calcifications merely as evidence of prior body protective mechanisms in action. Small bruises can occasion calcification patching, for example.
Experts who read mammogram results can tell whether any calcification or other abnormal finding is significant. In matters where only expert opinion governs, you simply have to submit to such opinion. In short, leave the worrying up to your doctor and his experts.